Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T08:35:50.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rubens’s Life of Maria de’ Medici: Dissimulation and the Politics of Art in Early Seventeenth-Century France*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sara Galletti
Sara Galletti*
Affiliation:
Duke University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Life of Maria de’ Medici, the biographical series of twenty-four large-size paintings executed for the Queen Mother of France by Peter Paul Rubens in 1622–25, is traditionally regarded by historians as both a masterpiece of Baroque art and a monument of political naïveté. According to this view, the series was a disrespectful visual bravado that exposed both patron and painter to scandal by publicly advertising the queen’s political ideas and ambitions, which were not only audacious, but often in opposition to those of her son King Louis XIII. This article challenges this assessment by reading the Life within the context of seventeenth-century uses of dissimulation and spatial control as strategies to limit both intellectual and physical access to information. It argues that the series was imbued with multiple layers of meaning, intended for different audiences, and that access to these was strictly controlled by the queen and her circle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , Fall 2014 , pp. 878 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am very grateful to John Jeffries Martin for reading the first draft of my manuscript and for offering his invaluable advice. I also wish to thank for their observations and comments Giovanna Benadusi, Judith Brown, Caroline Castiglione, and Jacqueline Gutwirth, who participated in the panel “Aristocratic Women in the Late Renaissance: Art, Religion, and Politics in France and Italy” at the 2012 New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Sarasota, FL), where I presented a first version of this article. Finally, I am grateful to Francesco Benelli, Rossella Gotti, and Eva Renzulli for helping me obtain copies of rare materials from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Avery Library. All translations are mine except where otherwise noted.

References

Accetto, Torquato. Della dissimulazione onesta. Ed. Salvatore Silvano Nigro. Turin, 1997.Google Scholar
Archivio di Stato, Florence, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4638, not paginated. Letter of Giovanni Battista Gondi. 31 May 1625.Google Scholar
Archivio di Stato, Florence, Mediceo del Principato, filza 4643, fols. 375r–375v. Letter of Giovanni Battista Gondi. 28 December 1630.Google Scholar
Art Market and Connoisseurship: A Closer Look at Paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Their Contemporaries. Ed. Anna Tummers and Koenraad Jonckheere. Amsterdam, 2008.Google Scholar
Bardon, Françoise. Le portrait mythologique à la cour de France sous Henri IV et Louis XIII: mythologie et politique. Paris, 1974.Google Scholar
Bassompierre, François de. Journal de ma vie: mémoires du maréchal de Bassompierre. Ed. Marie Joseph de Chantérac. 4 vols. Paris, 1870–77.Google Scholar
Bellori, Giovanni Pietro. Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti moderni. Rome, 1672.Google Scholar
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS Baluze 323, fols. 54–57. Anon., Baluze memorandum.Google Scholar
Burke, Peter. The Fabrication of Louis XIV. New Haven, 1992.Google Scholar
Carmona, Michel. Marie de Médicis. Paris, 1981.Google Scholar
Carroll, Margaret D. Painting and Politics in Northern Europe: Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, and Their Contemporaries. University Park, 2008.Google Scholar
Cavaillé, Jean-Pierre. Dis/simulations: Jules-César Vanini, François La Mothe Le Vayer, Gabriel Naudé, Louis Machon et Torquato Accetto: religion, morale et politique au XVIIe siècle. Paris, 2002.Google Scholar
Chatenet, Monique. La cour de France au XVIe siècle: vie sociale et architecture. Paris, 2002.Google Scholar
Chatenet, Monique. “Un lieu pour se promener qu’en France on appelle galerie.” Bulletin monumental 166.1 (2008): 5–13.10.3406/bulmo.2008.2438CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Sarah R. “Rubens’s France: Gender and Personification in the Marie de Médicis Cycle.” The Art Bulletin 85.3 (2003): 490–522.10.2307/3177384CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cosandey, Fanny. La reine de France: Symbole et pouvoir, XVe–XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 2000.Google Scholar
Crawford, Katherine. Perilous Performances: Gender and Regency in Early Modern France. Cambridge, MA, 2004.Google Scholar
dal Pozzo, Cassiano. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome, MS lat. 5688. “Legatione del Signore Cardinale [Francesco] Barberini in Francia.” 1625.Google Scholar
De Marchi, Neil, and Hans J. Van Miegroet. “Pricing Invention: ‘Originals,’ ‘Copies,’ and Their Relative Value in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Art Markets.” In Economics of the Arts: Selected Essays, ed. Victor Ginsburgh and Pierre-Michel Menger, 27–70. Amsterdam, 1996.Google Scholar
Dubos, Jean-Baptiste. Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et la peinture. Paris, 1719.Google Scholar
Dubost, Jean-François. Marie de Médicis: la reine dévoilée. Paris, 2009.Google Scholar
Félibien, André. Des principes de l’architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture et des autres arts qui en dépendent, avec un dictionnaire des termes propres à chacun de ces arts. Paris, 1676.Google Scholar
Félibien, André. Entretiens sur les vies et les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes. 4 vols. Trévoux, 1725.Google Scholar
Galletti, Sara. “L’appartement de Marie de Médicis au palais du Luxembourg.” In Marie de Médicis: un gouvernement par les arts, ed. Paola Pacht Bassani, 124–33. Paris, 2003.Google Scholar
Galletti, Sara. “Rubens et la galerie de Henri IV au palais du Luxembourg (1628–1630).” Bulletin monumental 166.1 (2008): 43–51.10.3406/bulmo.2008.2443CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galletti, Sara. “Architecture and Ceremonial in Early Modern France: The Court of Maria de’ Medici.” In Moving Elites: Women and Cultural Transfers in the European Court System, ed. Giulia Calvi and Isabelle Chabot, 77–111. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/14234. Florence, 2010.Google Scholar
Galletti, Sara. Le Palais du Luxembourg de Marie de Médicis, 1611–1631. Paris, 2012.Google Scholar
Gentilhâtre, Jacques. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS Français 14727. “Livre de l’architecture.” 1615–25.Google Scholar
Girard, Guillaume. Histoire de la vie du duc d’Espernon. Paris, 1655.Google Scholar
Goldenberg Stoppato, Lisa. “Lettere artistiche dal carteggio del segretario mediceo Camillo Guidi (1618–1621).” Paragone Arte 51.643 (2003): 60–85.Google Scholar
Guillaume, Jean. “La galerie dans le château français: place et function.” Revue de l’art 102.1 (1993): 32–42.Google Scholar
Hanley, Sarah. “Identity Politics and Rulership in France: Female Political Place and the Fraudulent Salic Law.” In Changing Identities in Early Modern France, ed. Michael Wolfe, 78–94. Durham, NC, 1997.Google Scholar
Held, Julius S. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens: A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. Princeton, 1980.Google Scholar
Johnson, Geraldine A. “Pictures Fit for a Queen: Peter Paul Rubens and the Maria de’ Medici Cycle.” Art History 16.3 (1993): 447–69.10.1111/j.1467-8365.1993.tb00536.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knecht, Robert J. The French Renaissance Court, 1483–1589. New Haven, 2008.Google Scholar
Lettres, mémoires, actes, instructions et contracts faicts au traicté de marriage d’entre Madame Henriette Marie sœur du roi et Charles premier, roi de la grande Bretagne [1624–25]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Brienne 49.Google Scholar
Marrow, Deborah. The Art Patronage of Maria de’ Medici. Ann Arbor, 1982.Google Scholar
Mercure François. Ed. Jean Richer, Estienne Richer, and Théophraste Renaudot. 25 vols. Paris, 1611–48.Google Scholar
Merle du Bourg, Alexis. Peter Paul Rubens et la France, 1600–1640. Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2004.Google Scholar
Mignot, Claude. “La galerie au XVIIe siècle: continuités et ruptures.” Bulletin monumental 166.1 (2008): 15–20.Google Scholar
Mignot, Claude. “La galerie dans les traités.” In Les grandes galeries européennes, XVIIe–XIXe siècles, ed. Claire Constans and Mathieu Da Vinha, 37–49. Paris, 2010.Google Scholar
Millen, Ronald F., and Wolf, Robert E. Heroic Deeds and Mystic Figures: A New Reading of Rubens’ Life of Maria de’ Medici. Princeton, 1989.Google Scholar
Mongrédien, George. La journée des dupes: 10 novembre 1630. Paris, 1961.Google Scholar
Morgues, Mathieu de. “ Vers latins sur les tableaux qui sont en la gallerie du Palais de la Royne Mère du Roy (1626).” Ed. H. Omont. Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris 8 (1881): 148–52.Google Scholar
Morisot, Claude-Barthélémy. Porticus medicæa. Paris, 1626.Google Scholar
Morisot, Claude-Barthélémy. Porticus medicæa. Paris, 1628.Google Scholar
Morisot, Claude-Barthélémy. Claudii Bartholomaei Morisoti epistolarum centuria prima [–secunda]. Dijon, 1656.Google Scholar
Muller, Jeffrey M. Rubens: The Artist as Collector. Princeton, 1989.Google Scholar
Orenstein, Nadine, Huigen Leeflang, Ger Luijten, and Christiaan Schuckman. “Print Publishers in the Netherlands, 1580–1620.” In Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Nederlandish Art, 1580–1620, ed. Ger Luijten, 167–200. Amsterdam, 1993.Google Scholar
Peeters, Natasja. “‘Painters pencells move not without that musicke’: Prices of Southern Nederlandish Painted Altarpieces between 1585 and 1650.” In Art Market and Connoisseurship (2008), 97–124.10.2307/j.ctt46n267.6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piles, Roger de. Conversations sur la connoissance de la peinture et sur le jugement qu’on doit faire des tableaux où par occasion il est parlé de la vie de Rubens et de quelques-uns de ses plus beaux ouvrages. Paris, 1677.Google Scholar
Platter, Thomas. Description de Paris par Thomas Platter le jeune de Bâle (1599). Ed. Ludwig Sieber. Nogent-le-Rotrou, 1896.Google Scholar
Rubens, Peter Paul. Correspondance de Rubens et documents épistolaires concernant sa vie et ses œuvres. Ed. Max Rooses and Charles Ruelens. 6 vols. Antwerp, 1887–1909.Google Scholar
Rubens, Peter Paul, Jean-Marc Nattier, and Jean-Baptiste Nattier. La Gallerie du Palais du Luxembourg. Paris, 1710.Google Scholar
Saward, Susan. The Golden Age of Marie de’ Medici. Ann Arbor, 1982.Google Scholar
Schnapper, Antoine. Curieux du grand siècle: collections et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siècle. Ed. Sophie Mouquin and Mickaël Szanto. Paris, 2005.Google Scholar
Serlio, Sebastiano. Tutte l’opere d’architettura. Venice, 1584.Google Scholar
Simson, Otto von. Zur Genealogie der weltlichen Apotheose im Barock: besonders der Medicigalerie des P. P. Rubens. Leipzig, 1936.Google Scholar
Sluijter, Eric Jan. “Determining Value on the Art Market in the Golden Age: An Introduction.” In Art Market and Connoisseurship (2008), 7–28.10.2307/j.ctt46n267.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, Jon R. Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe. Berkeley, 2009.10.1525/california/9780520228191.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soll, Jacob. Publishing the Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism. Ann Arbor, 2005.10.3998/mpub.88588CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summerson, John. The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe in Sir John Soane’s Museum. Oxford, 1966.Google Scholar
Taylor, Craig. “The Salic Law and the Valois Succession to the French Crown.” French History 15.4 (2001): 358–77.10.1093/fh/15.4.358CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thuillier, Jacques. “Peinture et politique: une théorie de la galerie royale sous Henri IV.” In Études d’art français offertes à Charles Sterling, ed. Albert Châtelet and Nicole Reynaud, 175–205. Paris, 1975.Google Scholar
Thuillier, Jacques, and Jacques Foucart. Le storie di Maria de’ Medici di Rubens al Lussemburgo. Milan, 1967.Google Scholar
Tummers, Anna. “‘By His Hand’: The Paradox of Seventeenth-Century Connoisseurship.” In Art Market and Connoisseurship (2008), 31–66.10.2307/j.ctt46n267.4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warnke, Martin. Laudando praecipere: der Medicizyklus des Peter Paul Rubens. Groningen, 1993.Google Scholar
Zagorin, Perez. Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, 1990.10.4159/harvard.9780674866379CrossRefGoogle Scholar